"A must have for RTS players"

Age of Mythology is a Real Time Strategy from the creators of the Age of Empires series. It contains the same feel with some new elements that makes this game worth buying. Here's why.

Gameplay: 10

Put simply, you are in control of one of three civilizations, the Greeks, the Norse, and the Egyptians, each with their own unique capabilities and units. A typical battle has you start a civilization with a town center and workers and a few soldiers. The workers are the backbone of your civilization, for they are used to expand by collecting three essential resources, food, gold, and wood. With sufficient resources, one can create infantry barracks, defenses, temples, etc, which leads to another thing. A new element has been implemented which has not been seen in any of the Age of Empire games, what I call, the God system. Each civilization gains ''Favor'' from the gods in their own unique way. Favor is used for mythological units and improvements, which ranges from increased attack/defense, or creatures such as Medusas, Pegasus, Hydras, etc. There are 9 different main gods in the game, with a handful of minor gods that can be used in battle. Each civilization can have to a maximum of 4 god powers which may be used only once, which ranges from meteor strikes to lightning bolts to health recovery.

Graphics: 10

Everything graphical about this game is impressive. There are varieties of terrain, from grass, to snow, to beaches and the underworld, all with impressive detail. The units themselves are detailed as well. It's just impressive to see a Minotaur knock a soldier up in the air in the heat of battle. The camera is also adjustable. It can be rotated, and also can be used to zoom in and out of the action. Overall, textures are clear, polygon count is high, terrain is varied, but my one and only flaw is that dead bodies after a while, sink into the ground, never to been seen again. Unusual, but whatever saves memory I guess. Though sometimes you'll see skeletons and what not lying on the battlefield.

Sound: 10

I love this music, it's MP3 formatted, so it's crystal clear. It ranges from Greekish tunes to high paced war songs, depending on what's going on in the field. Sound effects are great too. Everything from the sounds of the beaches to swords clashing and soldiers dying ruthlessly adds to the atmosphere. My only gripe is that there isn't too much variety in voices, many units only have 2 or 3 distinct voices sadly. Although it's really cool to hear a Minotaur snarl when selected, there just should of been different degrees of snarling.

Presentation: 10

This game has such a small instruction manual, but it doesn't matter, the Tutorial teaches everything needed to know to play the game. And there's even a nifty encyclopedia of sorts that gives you info on units, like the height and weight of a hydra, the attack, where found in Greek mythology, etc.

Replayability: 10

30+ missions, 4 difficulty settings, a random map creator, which is basically skirmish mode, and of course, the multiplayer will keep you playing for a long while. Plenty to do here.

Overall: 10

This game offers so much variety, so much to do, in just about every aspect, makes this game worthwhile. If you are new to the RTS genre, this game will give you a warm welcome. For veterans, the AI and variety of tactics will keep you playing for hours to come. I say buy!